Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Wednesday Rants

Today, I have a grab-bag of rants, all heard on the radio.

The first is an increasingly common element I'm hearing on radio commercials. As an announcer speaks, one hears an amplified, steady bass drum beat in the background, sometimes alone and sometimes with a repeating loop of three notes or so from a guitar or wind instrument. The announcer talks at a fairly fast pace, and is nearly drowned out by the incessant, "WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP, WUMP" in the background.

To me, there's nothing that says "cheesy, homemade commercial" quite like the "wump, wump" machine going in the background. One of the most recent offenders in this category I've heard in the last week is an ad for a local car dealership. This commercial has the ubiquitous yelling announcer along with the wumping bass drum, which combined together has all the necessary elements for classically tacky commercial. A second ad is one for a local gym, which has a similarly slick and sleazy effect. But the last one is an ad for Petco "Where the Pets Go". This commercial would have been an OK ad, except for the addition of the "wump, wump" effect. The only thing I can figure is that the "wump, wump" machine must be the latest ad agency gimmick.
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About a week ago, I heard a song that's been on my "Songs I Love to Hate" list since it was first released, nearly 30 years ago:

"You Can't Change That" by Ray Parker and Raydio

What I hate about this song is that the line, "You can't change that" is repeated 28 times during the course of the song. I know, because I counted.

After about the sixth, "you can't change that", I DO "change that"...the radio station, that is.
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Next, is my newest addition to the "Songs I Love to Hate" list:

"That's the Way It Is" by Celine Dion

Basically, this is a fairly unremarkable song; pretty much of a yawner. What grinds my gears about this song is her enunciation of the words, particularly the word "love"

One line is:

"So don't surrender 'cause you can win
In this thing called lo-o-o-o-ve"


The problem is that she sings the drawn-out "lo-o-o-o-o-ve" as "ler-her-herve"

"Ler-her-herve"? What in the fuck is "ler-her-herve"?!

The damned woman sounds like she doesn't know if she should sing or hock up a loogie!

As always, feel free to mention commercials or songs that you love to hate in the comment box.

2 comments:

Lex Valentine said...

I could rant about Celine. I can't stand her. She mangles the words of a lot of her songs, which, unfortunately for me, I have to hear sometimes because she's a singer my co-workers adore. *shudder* In retaliation, I force them to listen to Lacuna Coil and Sixx AM. Yeah, I just don't like the whole mispronouncing English words when you sing thing. English as a second language singers need to spit out correctly or stick to their native language. I'd like her a lot better if her songs were in French.

Lola Gets said...

Hey, how can you not love that Ray Parker song?!

"Aint nothin you can do or say, Ive thought about this for many a day, and my minds made up to feel this way, and you cant change that!"

Man, I would type out some more lyrics, but I dont want to piss you off any more, lol.

As for Celine Dion; I managed to catch her singing Tina and Ikes "River Deep Mountain High" and while she normally does a good job of that, her over-enunciation really got to me. So I muted the tv set and just watched her dance around in a teeny, tiny gold dress. Shes really got nice legs.

L